In the conversations about great arcade racers I've never heard Moto Racer's name come up. In fact I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about this game ever. The only reason I know about it is my vague memories of playing it as a kid. I feel like the gaming community is biased towards certain titles due to their reputation. Because this here is the original Sega Rally, except with motorbikes.
And it really makes this distinction tangible with higher speeds, fragile vehicles and more verticality in the tracks. There are two types of races here: your regular speed racing and motocross, and there is a different emphasis in each. The first is a suspenseful, adrenaline-pumping experience that requires hyper attention and reaction. But, when you're able to pull off some of the rather snaky series' of turns at 200+ km/h it feels extremely rewarding.
The motocross tracks give you more time to assess the upcoming turns, but add the challenge of calculating the trajectory of your air time that's gonna result from driving up the hills at high speeds. It's all much simpler and more intuitive than it sounds though. One kinda stand-out feature is the ability to speed up by doing a pop-a-wheelie, which is something that's not explained to you in the game, even the control scheme doesn't tell you about it. It's handy after crashes, but normally you don't need to speed up, as you're already going so fast, it'll only make your bike harder to control.
The graphics and music are gorgeous on some tracks and kinda vary in quality on others. Some songs with vocals sound pretty corny. The game does let you select which song is gonna play mid-race, which is pretty cool, but it's just extra busywork that nobody needs. Perhaps, if the game let you pick a selection of songs like EA BlackBox's NFS titles do, I might've even rated it higher. Because, although this game doesn't really do anything exceptional, everything it does do is extremely well-done. Certain tracks provide such a stellar audio-visual experience that, if the game managed to keep this up for its entirety, it would've really been a perfect experience.
I guess, if I really had to nitpick, I'd complain about the pop-in, which, from the footage I've seen, is as bad on PC as it is on PS1. But it's not THAT bad, and is actually better than most old racing games I've played.
And it really makes this distinction tangible with higher speeds, fragile vehicles and more verticality in the tracks. There are two types of races here: your regular speed racing and motocross, and there is a different emphasis in each. The first is a suspenseful, adrenaline-pumping experience that requires hyper attention and reaction. But, when you're able to pull off some of the rather snaky series' of turns at 200+ km/h it feels extremely rewarding.
The motocross tracks give you more time to assess the upcoming turns, but add the challenge of calculating the trajectory of your air time that's gonna result from driving up the hills at high speeds. It's all much simpler and more intuitive than it sounds though. One kinda stand-out feature is the ability to speed up by doing a pop-a-wheelie, which is something that's not explained to you in the game, even the control scheme doesn't tell you about it. It's handy after crashes, but normally you don't need to speed up, as you're already going so fast, it'll only make your bike harder to control.
The graphics and music are gorgeous on some tracks and kinda vary in quality on others. Some songs with vocals sound pretty corny. The game does let you select which song is gonna play mid-race, which is pretty cool, but it's just extra busywork that nobody needs. Perhaps, if the game let you pick a selection of songs like EA BlackBox's NFS titles do, I might've even rated it higher. Because, although this game doesn't really do anything exceptional, everything it does do is extremely well-done. Certain tracks provide such a stellar audio-visual experience that, if the game managed to keep this up for its entirety, it would've really been a perfect experience.
I guess, if I really had to nitpick, I'd complain about the pop-in, which, from the footage I've seen, is as bad on PC as it is on PS1. But it's not THAT bad, and is actually better than most old racing games I've played.